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Stephen Fry and DVD Jon Back USB Sniffer Project

Posted by Soulskill on from the mainstream-hacking dept.

An anonymous reader writes "bushing and pytey of the iPhone DevTeam and Team Twiizers have created a Kickstarter project to fund the build of an open-source/open-hardware high-speed USB protocol analyzer. The board features a high-speed USB 2.0 sniffer that will help with the reverse engineering of proprietary USB hardware. The project has gained the backing of two high-profile individuals: Jon Lech Johansen (DVD Jon), and actor and comedian Stephen Fry."

26 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stephen Fry also did a video for the GNU project's 25th birthday:

    http://www.gnu.org/fry/ "Freedom Fry"

    --
    Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
    1. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Spad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, apart from the freedom to choose a locked down device if you want one.

      Unless, of course, you're advocating forcing people to use devices that give them freedom?

    2. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Funny

      The capitalist pig probably also drives a non-opensource car.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    3. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Coeurderoy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      nobody is perfect :-)
      personally I do not like the iPhone for all kinds or reasons, but although my teen son accepted one as a gift from his granfather I did not decide to disown him :-)

      and "you" probably drive a car with proprietary "car"matics, "eeeviill"...

      Let's than Stephen Fry for what support he gives, and try to explain issues to anybody who'd listen when possible..

    4. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But then, considering freedom good, and considering high quality hardware and software good are not mutually exclusive. Nor are acknowledging that sometimes you have to sacrifice one for the other.

      It's entirely possible to like both apple products, and open things.

    5. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by symes · · Score: 2, Informative

      Stephen Fry is an old man enjoying popularity with the young crowd by latching himself on to things he doesn't really understand.

      The minute he is criticised or meets some opposition to his actions he will storm off in a pathetic strop.

      You know this for fact? irrespective of what people might think of Fry's personality, he is very far from dim. It would not surprise me that he has a pretty decent handle on what he is prepared to discuss. IANAG (geriatric), even so I think that some of the biggest and most revered names in FOSS and such like are well and truly in Fry's age group. That said, he does strop.

    6. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by adamofgreyskull · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're either a troll, or are ignorant. I saw a speech he gave a few years ago that was broadcast on BBC Parliament (or whatever it's called) on software freedom, DRM, format-shifting, P2P etc and he completely grokked the issues. He's not "just an old man", or "just a celebrity", he's actually incredibly fucking astute. He's a high-profile, highly intelligent celebrity, who actually knows what he's talking about, and exactly the kind of person people in power might actually listen to, as opposed to some AC on /. or "some beardy yank". tl;dr: He shares "our views" and communicates at a level that most British politicians respect and understand. This is a Good Thing.

    7. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Pax681 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      actually Stephen Fry is extremely intelligent and computer literate.

      he IS deffo a mac fanboi however, saying he doesn't understand just shows your complete ignorance of the man.

      For example, Emma thompson's laptop went tits up and she thought the script for the movie she had written was all but lost. she called stephen and asked his help....

      he managed to recover the script and everything else on the macbook that emma thought she had lost.

      so check the Production section of sense and sensinility wiki page for this little snippet
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Sensibility_(film)

      On an episode of the popular quiz show QI, Emma Thompson revealed that she lost the screenplay on her faulty computer. When a repairman could not retrieve the file, she took the computer in a taxi to friend Stephen Fry, who, along with flatmate Hugh Laurie, spent seven hours retrieving the missing file.

      personally i am not a mac fan either however stephen fry does like their stuff and it was the writer Dougles Adams that got him into apple products

      he has also been dealing with mental health issues and WINNING.. he's not the type to run off in a strop....

      perhaps you should not comment on subjects that YOU can't understand or people you blatantly know nothing about eh?

    8. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by ciderbrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

      He drives a London black cab.

    9. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ah like the "old men" that invented computing as we know it? Um, Like JCR Licklider?

      You know, the guy who was 45 in 1960, when he wrote about needing billions of bits in computers? IN 1960!??

      Yes, yes, I know, history is not important around here, especially when it doesn't involve rockets or space. Hell, even then no one cares.

    10. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by squizzar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If I remember correctly he's a manic depressive, so possibly the odd strop is not unreasonable. Also given the propensity for Slashdotters to be a bit odd, I don't think it's entirely fair to put him down for some behavioural quirks, many of which are less serious than those exhibited by stereotypical computer types.

    11. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're right. I find it strange that people who don't want to be stereotyped (such as "he's just a geek") stereotype other people so readily ("he's just a comedian"). News at 11: People sometimes have more than one interest!

      Asia Carrera, in addition to being a porn star, was at one time ranked number one in Unreal Tournament in the world. Crack all the jokes you like, but when was the last time you made millions and were ranked number one at a video game when it was at the top of its popularity?

    12. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by toriver · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think his illness is referred to as "bipolar disease" which is related to manic depression but not the same.

    13. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by hedwards · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The better question is why other people didn't see that coming. I mean the whole point of computing earlier on was to get through a set of data more quickly than one could manually do it. And to keep going longer as well. Both of which point to larger amounts of memory and disk space being needed.

      Given the amount of scientific discovery at the time it seems a bit odd to not think there was a huge need in the future.

    14. Re:Stephen Fry's previous good stuff: gnu bday by chartreuse · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Remember he's a convicted criminal too, kids.

      Yes, credit card fraud when he was 17 (three months' sentence), thirty-five years ago. Then he went to Cambridge, joined the Footlights, and began a brilliant career. (This was all covered in the BBC's celebration of Fry and Hugh Laurie's work just last Wednesday.)

      From Wikipedia: "In December 2006 he was ranked sixth for the BBC's Top Living Icon Award, was featured on The Culture Show, and was voted most intelligent man on television by readers of Radio Times. [...] BBC Four dedicated two nights of programming to Fry on 17 and 18 August 2007, in celebration of his 50th birthday. The first night, comprising programs featuring Fry, began with a sixty-minute documentary entitled Stephen Fry: 50 Not Out. The second night was composed of programs selected by Fry, as well as a 60-minute interview with Mark Lawson and a half-hour special, Stephen Fry: Guilty Pleasures. Stephen Fry Weekend proved such a ratings hit for BBC Four that it was repeated on BBC Two on 16 and 17 of that September."

      So if anything you're implying an early conviction is a good career move. But I'm sure you've never done anything illegal in your famously-productive life. What kind of example does that set for the kids? Go out and get convicted today!

  2. Re:so? by imakemusic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Like I care when an Anonymous Coward dismisses a comedians endorsement of a software/hardware project...

    --
    Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
  3. Anysort of breakout-board is always a welcome tool by smoothnorman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's a great idea, but at this point shouldn't it be a USB-3.0 device?

  4. Re:so? by adamofgreyskull · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He's not just a comedian though is he? Most actresses know less about foreign policy than Sarah Palin, whereas Stephen Fry knows a lot about open-ness, DRM and the importance of being able to play a DVD on the OS of your choice. Should we ignore anything Brian May has to say on the subject of Astrophysics because he's "just a musician"?

  5. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by Amorymeltzer · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Write" is a strong word. How about "published posthumously as part of a larger collection of writings?"

    --
    I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
  6. Also his father by Kupfernigk · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Fry owes a lot to his father, who ran a company that made electronic controls from a factory in the grounds of their house in Norfolk. Fry's father was still writing code, the last I heard.

    Mind you, there's not much else to do in Norfolk.

    Computer literacy runs in the family.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  7. Why hardware? by bcmm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why does this need to be implemented in hardware?

    I presume the main purpose of this is analyzing the communication between a USB device and its proprietary Windows driver. Wouldn't it be easier to modify virtualization software to do this? Qemu can already connect a real USB device to a virtual machine (see its "-usbdevice host:" option).

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    1. Re:Why hardware? by marcansoft · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Two main reasons: Embedded device peripherals, and USB device development. Sometimes you don't have access to the OS running on the host to set up a sniffer (game consoles, some smartphones, and similar). And sometimes you need to debug a USB device that you're developing, and software USB sniffers don't provide the kind of detail needed to do that effectively (some errors are only evident when you watch the stuff on the wire, not the high-level requests).

      Also, software sniffers are imperfect. I've had issues with them. A physical hardware device is completely transparent and can work without either side noticing anything. Sure, you can make do with a software sniffer sometimes, but that doesn't mean there's no point to a hardware version.

      And since this is open, it can be repurposed for other uses. For example, you could use only the device port, and turn it into a kind of usb device-to-device bridge that lets your computer impersonate a USB device. That is currently not possible except on embedded systems with USB device controllers, and those have limitations. You could also use it as a pretty good logic analyzer, given proper firmware.

  8. Re:Yes, because by DavidWeight · · Score: 5, Informative

    Should we ignore anything Brian May has to say on the subject of Astrophysics because he's "just a musician"

    He's Brian Cox, OBE.

    Or he's Brian May-of Queen, with a PHD in astrophysics from Imperial College... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May

  9. Re:Software only solution? by dave420 · · Score: 2, Informative

    You just answered your own question. This will work on *anything* that has a USB port. Anything.

  10. Amusing video but... by fragMasterFlash · · Score: 2, Informative

    Having worked with several commercial USB protocol analyzers over the years I have yet to see one was anything more than an FPGA connected to an off the shelf USB PHY chip. As much as I like cute dog videos these guys need to post proper requirements and design specifications if they seriously want funding from me.

  11. Re:Douglas Adams would've approved ... by RockDoctor · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Write" is a strong word. How about "published posthumously as part of a larger collection of writings?"

    Are you saying that Adams published his own work posthumously? Neat trick.

    Of course he did. He's only spent the last decade dead for tax reasons.

    (You set 'em up ; I'll knock 'em in!)

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"